


Shards and Shields

by VioletTheHero



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Corrupted Gems, Cracked Gems, Crystal Gems, Gem War, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, everyone needs to chill, homeworld needs to chill, jasper needs to chill, possible redemptions, possibly more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletTheHero/pseuds/VioletTheHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one could say  that the Gem Rebellion led by the esteemed Rose Quartz didn't have an impact on all those involved, however bad it may have been. For some it was worse than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shards and Shields

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to Shards and Shields a Fanfic that is yes going to star several gemsonas alongside the main cast of Steven Universe Characters. As for my other fanfic The Legend of Steven, it is still very much in the works don’t you worry. Actually, this fic has been in the works almost as long as it has, the reason there hasn’t been a chapter for it yet is that I only work on this one when I’m stuck on The Legend of Steven and doing both does help in generating ideas. Anyways, I hope you enjoy Shards and Shields!
> 
> (The Legend of Steven can be found here https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11370510/1/The-Legend-of-Steven

 

If she had possessed a human heart, it would have been thundering in her ears as she shot across the battle worn field. Her boots thumping against the ground and her eyes darting back and forth as she searched for small reflections of the setting sun across the ground. She had to find them, find them before anyone else could and long before the flames left from the fighting could finish them off.

Letting her feet slow for a moment as she looked about a group of shattered gem shards scattered around and falling beside one another. While thankful to not recognize any of them, she understood the lives lost here as she knelt down to carefully pick each shard from the ground, doing her best to match them with their respective pieces. Guessing them to be enemies who destroyed each other in battle, she made sure to keep them separate from each other as she made sure to collect every piece.

While she had no idea to whose side they belonged to, it felt wrong to just leave them lying there even if they had already passed. She picked each group of shards up one at a time before bubbling them and sending them away once she had cleared the area. Looking back to the ground, she began to pick up the stones that still had a chance to recover. The ones that yes, may have been cracked, but so long as they were in one piece there was still hope for them so she made sure to handle them with care.

Needing to get them off the battlefield before the fighting came back around and before she was spotted. She lifted them up using her light pink shirt as a temporary basket. Bubbling them like the shards could make reforming difficult even if she were to pop the bubble as soon as she reached what she affectionately called her ‘secret base’ that she ran to now. Hopping onto a warp pad to get her close to it without revealing her position to either side were they to some how track her.

Once the light from the warp pad had dissipated, she let her eyes rest on the mountainous landscape, narrowly avoiding the worst of the war which she could hear vaguely even here. She made a mental note to head to that area soon as she walked through the mountains.

It was nestled under a cliff formed from years of fighting a now dried up river that had carved a tunnel into the rock face. Covered well in undergrowth and smaller rocks that had been shaken from the world wide war, she pushed one of the larger rocks to the side and entered the small cave within. Shutting it behind her once she had set the gems down on a small makeshift table made of even more stones. The cave was not horribly cozy, and now that the rock had been closed it was quite dark now, illuminated only by the dim, pinkish light her gem emitted from her throat.

She didn’t spend too much time here after all, it was just a spot for her to leave the gems she gathered so that they wouldn’t be finished off by either side of the war. The biggest threat to these gems being Homeworld. Those fighting on behalf of Rose Quartz being under threat of getting marked a traitor, while those loyal to Homeworld were in danger of facing consequence for their defeat now that their home had grown far less forgiving of failures in recent years.

Sitting down on a jutting rock for a brief rest, she looked up at the light pink bubbles that floated around the cave’s ceiling, all filled with gem shards she had collected.“When this war finally ends I’ll make sure you receive a proper burial.” she promised to them. Standing up again, she picked up the whole gems and went further into the twists and turns of the cave, leaving them in their own crevices large enough to exit when the time came. She would keep them here until each reformed, and in case of one or more turning hostile against her or the other gems, she made sure they were separated by winding caverns. Only she knew the way through all of them, but she always did leave a message or a signal for them to know how to leave without ever knowing it was her that had saved them.

For the cracked gems, she couldn’t do quite as much. Many who reformed from their cracked gems were not quite...strong or capable enough to remember what side they were from and those that did lashed out wildly at anything that came in contact with them. Many more, well, they just fell apart and there was little she could do aside from care for them from afar until their gem wore itself out or they found their way back some way or another.

It wasn’t a great job that she had, it certainly what she had been assigned to do when she had arrived on Earth from Homeworld, but as she could never bring herself to fight as she was made to do. All too often she would freeze up on the battlefield or completely shut down when a fight would fall on her shoulders.

This kind of behaviour was shameful for a Tourmaline, one the many types of gems intended to be expendable in battle, it was shameful for Pink Tourmaline to act this way and part of the reason that Homeworld no longer wanted anything to do with her. She was defective and that was that.

She would have turned and possibly served in the rebellion, or rather, the Crystal Gems, if she wasn’t terrified of what would happen to them if they lost the war. It wasn’t like she was exactly against Homeworld all together either but with recent events it had grown very difficult to understand which side was in the right if there even was one.

So here she was, a gem belonging to no side that was too cowardly to fight in battle or for those around her. Even in her self imposed mission she rarely had to wield her weapon and in those cases it was only to briefly block a hit so she could run off with a gem.

Tourmaline sighed to herself as she ran a hand through her light pink hair and sat down on the rock floor beneath her, watching the Earth’s setting sun for the next hour or so as it cast shadows into the cave. She knew she would have to head back onto the field once the battles near by had quieted down, but for a little while a least she had the illusion of peace that allowed her to rest.

It wouldn’t have last long however as the need to get moving again was pushed upon her hearing a familiar gem’s cackling laugh and hammer come down in the distance.

She pushed herself up from her seat immediately,then ran back out to the warp pad she had arrived on, wishing for it to move faster.

She never came during the actual fighting, why was she suddenly here now? Tourmaline wondered in slight panic as the light beamed her up.

Tourmaline had no time to lose if she wanted to stop the closest thing she had to a true enemy in this war. She had to get there before it was too late.

* * *

 

The greenish gem shattered easily under the weight of the war hammer. Pulling it up to inspect her work, she smiled to herself, the light blue veins of her mostly dark skin almost glowing with a strange pride for what she had done.

It was a service to Homeworld for her to eliminate these threats permanently before the traitors could reform and defeat more Homeworld soldiers. It was a Boulder Opal’s job to do so as well and the motion of slamming her hammer onto defenseless gems easily became a familiar sensation.

Years had passed since she first took to her assigned mission. Fresh out of the Kindergarden with hammer in hand, her first few kills had been rough. Her initial attempts useless as fighting multiple gems before they had retreated to their gems only ended in her retreating to her own.

After several of these failed attacks, she had learned the best time for her to enter the battlefield was after the fighting had moved somewhere else. By this point much of her job had been done for her, shattered stones lining the ground and crunching slightly under her feet. The ones who weren’t yet shattered there as well and after her brief inspections to determine who belonged to whose side the rest was a breeze.

It was rather cruel, yes, she was taking lives after all. But there was still a sense of excitement whenever she brought the hammer down. The sadistic thrill that came with knowing that you were ending a life….

Spotting another gem poking from the ground, she formed another smile and approached it, and gathered it and a couple more into a pile before lifting her hammer. Her shadow covered the gems and with a quiet grunt she slammed the hammer down.

She expected to hear the familiar ‘CRAACK!’ that came with this action but instead heard only a clang as a light pink object collided with a hammer, the recoil from the hit sending Boulder Opal stumbling back.

The pink object was pulled back and now that it was no longer so close Boulder was able to see that it was an umbrella like object. ‘Oh great’, Boulder thought bitterly as she watched the umbrella get pulled back and rest on the shoulder of its pink bearer, ‘It’s her.’

“That was a close one.” Tourmaline muttered under her breath as she scooped up the gems as quickly as she could into one arm, her umbrella pointed back to Boulder so to protect her and the gems.

“Why do ya always have to be wrecking my fun?!” Boulder complained angrily, already recovering from her initial surprise and charging towards Pink Tourmaline.

Tourmaline jumped from her charge, evidently not wanting to risk a chance of the gems she was holding to get hit in Boulder’s attacks. “You’re killing gems! For Homeworld or not I can’t let you do that!” she countered, turning to try and run from the enemy gem.

“They’ll just kill a Homeworld soldier themselves if I let them go.” Boulder said, chasing after her with no intention of letting her escape with the gems again. It happened more than Boulder would ever care to admit but not enough to where her job would begin to be questioned. Not yet anyways.

“You don’t know that!” Tourmaline yelled back, gaining plenty of distance between herself and Boulder.  

Deciding that she was going to be unable to catch up with her, Boulder switched her tactics. She slammed her hammer into the ground sending debris into the air as a result. She hit them before they had the chance to reach the ground again, firing them at Tourmaline like bullets.

She opened her umbrella again, the rocks ricocheting off of it and protecting her. Not letting up on her, Boulder continued this attack, a smile forming as cracks spread on it until it finally shattered.

Boulder Opal laughed in spite of herself, firing another barrage at Tourmaline who didn’t have enough time to summon another weapon. Instead she ducked behind a rock that was quickly obliterated, the last of the bullets scraping her up slightly as she was using her own body to guard the gems she was holding.

While Boulder prepared one final attack, she noticed a glow in one of the gems Tourmaline was holding as it rose into the air, enveloped in a slightly red hue. Boulder adjusted her stance, in the event the regenerated gem turned and actually fought as opposed to Tourmaline’s running, Boulder did not want to be caught off guard.

The gem landed on the ground, she was shorted than Boulder by a good amount, most gems were, but she was even smaller than Pink Tourmaline and had light red skin. Her hair a darker shade of red and tied with a headband. Boulder couldn’t spot a diamond on her and so she immediately knew this newcomer was a member of Rose’s Army. She prepared to attack.

Instead, the red gem completely ignored Boulder, her gaze instead darting from side to side as she searched for something. Evidently she found whatever, or rather, whoever, it was clutched in Tourmaline’s arms.

“Sapphire!” the red gems exclaimed, first in joy and then again in rage, “You let Sapphire go!” she demanded, a gauntlet forming on her right hand which she used to try and attack Tourmaline.

Boulder watched in slight surprise at the change in events, Tourmaline backed from the hit as the red gem lashed out wildly at her.

It was all Pink Tourmaline could do to avoid getting hit by the weapon. This gem was smaller than her yes, but she was also slightly faster. Tourmaline tried to get a few words in but every time they were drowned out by the red gem’s yelling.

This gem was backing Tourmaline back towards Boulder now, whether it was intentional or not Boulder didn’t really care as she flipped her hammer from its blunt side to the side that formed a gradual point.

As Tourmaline turned to try and run away from her small opponent, she came face to face with said point. The hammer hitting her throat which would have been fine for most gems, but not so much for her as the air was filled with a sickening CRAAACK that made even Boulder Opal cringe despite her being the one to cause it.

Even the red gem stopped her attacks, lowering her gauntlet as her eyes widened.

Tourmaline’s eyes widened as well, she had fallen to the ground from the hit and the gems she was holding fell to the ground as well with light clinks. Her gloved hand shook as she brought it to her throat, feeling the long fracture that went through it.

The three gems remained in silence for another brief moment before the red gem snatched a blue one from those that had fallen and quickly ran off leaving Boulder and Tourmaline by themselves.

“Yeesh, that left a mark.” Boulder said, trying to laugh it off, she had shattered gems many, many times before but, there was something different about cracking a gem belonging to someone who still had their projected form.

“Nes-n-n-ah.” Tourmaline spoke, spoke being used loosely as her words came out garbled and sounding almost like a glitch. She seemed definitely aware of this as she covered her mouth in shock. Boulder almost felt bad for her.

“It’s probably, probably best to put you out of your misery before it cracks on its own.” Boulder said, lifting her hammer again as she prepared to slam the blunt side down. “Or before you get corrupted, that wouldn’t be fun now would it?”

Tourmaline was struggling to stand up, stumbling back to the ground almost immediately after each attempt. She was done for, Boulder knew this, it would take just one last hit and she would finish the gem. But still, she hesitated, something stopping her from bringing the hammer down.

She just couldn’t for some reason, Tourmaline finally got to her feet and without waiting ran away, tripping once or twice but Boulder did not pursue. Figuring she’d just write in her report that yes she had succeeded, Tourmaline would be dead the next time she set foot in the battlefield anyways. Possibly before then given the crack she had left her with.

Boulder sighed angrily, turning away even from the gems Pink Tourmaline had dropped, she had lost her motivation for crushing gems for now. No doubt, she figured she’d be back to it tomorrow.

It was what she was made for afterall.

 

 

 


End file.
